Health conditions · Neuropathy
Peripheral neuropathy is nerve damage affecting the extremities — the arms and legs, and especially the hands and feet. It is frequently overlooked until it is well established.
Into the hands and the feet. The peripheral nerves are the far end of a system that starts at the spine.
Patient education — general information about the condition, not medical advice about your body. Only an examination can tell you what is going on with yours.
Peripheral neuropathy is damage to the nerves that serve your extremities. The classic description is pins and needles — a pressure-like, prickling pain — but it covers a wide range: burning pain, skin that has become oversensitive, cramping, electrical shock-like pain, muscle weakness, numbness, and impaired balance with an increased risk of falling. Cramping and pain that disrupt sleep are common.
The pattern matters. Symptoms usually start mild and worsen over time, and they tend to march — from the toes to the feet, then up into the legs, and they can eventually affect the hands too. That progression is one of the reasons early attention is worth it.
The causes are varied: diabetic neuropathy is a major one, along with vitamin deficiencies, injury, medication, chemotherapy treatment and nerve compression syndromes. In many cases, though, the cause is idiopathic — meaning there is no apparent cause, and that is the honest state of the science rather than a failure of the examination.
Does this sound like you?
Not a diagnosis, and not a test — nothing here can tell you what you have. It is a list you can take with you, because everybody forgets half of it the moment a doctor walks into the room.
0 things to mention. However many you ticked, the exam is what tells you anything.
What tends to be behind it
01
Diabetic neuropathy is one of the most common causes. Managing the diabetes is central, and that is a medical matter.
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Certain deficiencies can drive nerve symptoms. Worth having ruled out via bloodwork.
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Nerve damage from trauma, from certain drugs, and from chemotherapy are all recognised causes.
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Compression syndromes are a cause chiropractic care is genuinely relevant to. In many cases, though, the cause is simply idiopathic — unknown.
How care approaches it
Written as aims, not outcomes — because that is all anyone can honestly promise you before they have examined you.
This is the one that matters most. Diabetic neuropathy, a vitamin deficiency, a medication side effect and a nerve compression are four different problems. Some of them are not chiropractic problems at all, and you deserve to be told which.
Where the nerve is being compressed or irritated somewhere along its path — including at the spine — that is where care is aimed.
Chiropractic care offers a non-invasive approach for people looking to avoid or reduce reliance on medication. Any change to a prescription is a conversation with the doctor who wrote it.
Impaired balance and increased fall risk are among the most serious consequences. Care and exercise that address stability are worth taking seriously — a fall is how neuropathy turns into a broken hip.
Chiropractic care is not a cure for any condition on this page, and no honest clinic will promise you one. What Dr. Means can do is examine you, tell you plainly whether this is something chiropractic care is suited to help with, and refer you elsewhere if it isn't.
If you come in
Step 01
Call or book online and we'll sit down with you at no cost or obligation. Tell us what's going on and we'll start building the picture.
Read this part
Some of what looks like peripheral neuropathy is something else, and some of it is urgent. A clinic that only ever tells you it can help is not being straight with you. If any of the following is true, do not book a chiropractic appointment — get medical care.
This page is general health information, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for examination by a qualified provider. In an emergency call 911. See our healthcare disclaimer.
Including the questions where the answer is no.
No. Established nerve damage is not something chiropractic care reverses, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. Where symptoms are being driven by nerve compression, care can be aimed at the compression.
Your diabetes management is the centre of the picture and that is your physician's domain. An exam can tell you whether there is also a mechanical component worth addressing — and it can tell you if there is not.
Peripheral neuropathy classically progresses from the toes, into the feet, then the legs, and can reach the hands. That upward march is characteristic.
No — not without talking to the doctor who prescribed it. Medications like gabapentin and pregabalin are commonly used for neuropathic pain, and stopping them is a medical decision.
That is what the consultation is for — and it costs you nothing to find out. If it turns out Dr. Means is not the right person for it, he will tell you that too.
